Iskandar bin Rahmat v Law Society of Singapore

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Sundaresh Menon CJ
• Judgment Date: 23 November 2021
• Neutral Citation: [2021] SGCA 107
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Civil Appeal No 9 of 2020
• Year: 2021
• Published date: 29 November 2021
• Hearing Date: 05 July 2021
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ravi s/o Madasamy (K K Cheng Law LLC)
• Defendant Counsel: P Padman (KSCGP Juris LLP)
• Subject Matter: Legal Profession,Disciplinary proceedings
• Citation: [2021] SGCA 107

Judith Prakash JCA (delivering the grounds of decision of the court): Introduction

This case arose from a complaint of professional misconduct made to the Law Society of Singapore (the “Law Society”) in respect of six lawyers who represented the appellant, Iskandar bin Rahmat (the “Appellant”), when he was on trial on charges of committing a double murder.

The Appellant was tried in the High Court on two counts of murder under s 300(a) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed). At the end of the trial, he was convicted on both counts and sentenced accordingly to the mandatory death penalty: Public Prosecutor v Iskandar bin Rahmat [2015] SGHC 310 (“Iskandar HC”). The Appellant then appealed against his convictions to this court. That appeal was dismissed on 3 February 2017 for the reasons given in Iskandar bin Rahmat v Public Prosecutor and other matters [2017] 1 SLR 505 (“Iskandar CA”).

Following his unsuccessful appeal, the Appellant filed a complaint (the “Complaint”) with the Law Society against the team of lawyers who had represented him during the High Court trial (the “Defence Team”). An Inquiry Committee (the “IC”) was appointed under the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed) (“LPA”) to consider the Complaint. After considering the allegations made by the Appellant and the responses of the Defence Team, the IC issued a report recommending that the Complaint be dismissed (the “IC Report”). The IC Report was considered by the Council of the Law Society (the “Council”), who then determined that no formal investigation by a Disciplinary Tribunal (“DT”) was necessary. The Complaint was dismissed accordingly.

Dissatisfied with the outcome, the Appellant applied to the High Court seeking a review of the Council’s determination. He also sought an order directing the Law Society to apply to the Chief Justice for a DT to be convened. This application was dismissed by the High Court Judge (the “Judge”) on 28 February 2020 for reasons given in Iskandar bin Rahmat v Law Society of Singapore [2020] SGHC 40 (the “Judgment”).

The Appellant filed an appeal against the Judgment. At this point, the matter took a detour when the Law Society took out an application to strike out the appeal. The ground of the striking out application was that this court did not have the jurisdiction to hear an appeal against a decision of a judge in disciplinary proceedings under the LPA. A five-judge coram disagreed with the Law Society, holding in Iskandar bin Rahmat v Law Society of Singapore [2021] 1 SLR 874 (“Iskandar Jurisdiction”) that this court was vested with the requisite jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

That decision then resulted in the present substantive appeal being brought before us. Having heard the parties’ submissions on 5 July 2021, we dismissed the appeal and affirmed the Judge’s decision.

These are our full reasons for dismissing the Appellant’s appeal against the Judgment.

Background

To properly understand the Appellant’s complaints against the Defence Team, it is necessary to return to the background facts leading up to the Appellant’s conviction for murder. These facts were covered comprehensively in Iskandar HC at [3]–[18], and we only set out those that are necessary for an understanding of the allegations in the Complaint.

The Appellant was employed by the Singapore Police Force from March 1999 and rose to the rank of senior staff sergeant. In July 2013, the Appellant was in financial difficulties being indebted to the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (“OCBC bank”) in the sum of $61,599.66. OCBC bank had taken out bankruptcy proceedings against him and served the application on the Appellant at his workplace. The Appellant offered an out-of-court settlement of full payment of $50,000, which the bank accepted; at the time, however, the Appellant had less than $400. These financial troubles had also spilled over to his work: he had been charged for being “financially embarrassed”, which carried the potential consequence of dismissal.

This state of affairs led the Appellant to devise a plan to rob the first victim, Mr Tan Boon Sin (“D1”). D1 was a businessman who had lodged police reports about missing cash and gold coins from his safe deposit box. The Appellant was initially the duty investigation officer for the case, and he learnt that there was still a substantial amount of cash in the box. The Appellant came up with an elaborate plan to steal from D1 so as to be able to pay off his debts.

On 10 July 2013, the Appellant met D1 near the location of the safe deposit box. D1 entered the premises and opened the box. He put a dummy camera supplied by the Appellant into the safe deposit box thinking it would help identify the thief. D1 removed the remaining cash from the box and placed it in an orange bag that the Appellant had brought with him. On the pretext of escorting D1 safely home, the Appellant accompanied D1 home in D1’s car.

According to the Appellant, when D1’s car arrived outside the house, the Appellant observed that he had opened the outer gates using a remote control at the driver’s seat. The car entered and parked at the porch. D1 then carried the orange bag into the house and placed it near the staircase leading up to the second level. When D1 attempted to close the gates, the Appellant requested that the gates be kept open as his “partner” (a fictitious character) would be arriving.

A large portion of the remainder of what happened in D1’s house was a matter of contention between the parties, both at trial and on appeal. What was not disputed, however, was that in the span of roughly 30 minutes, the Appellant inflicted a total of 23 stab and incised knife wounds on D1 in vulnerable areas such as the head, neck and chest. He also attacked Mr Tan Chee Hong (“D2”), the son of D1, who returned home as the Appellant was lowering D1’s body to the floor. On D2, the Appellant inflicted a total of 17 stab and incised wounds to his neck, face and scalp. Subsequently, D2 was dragged under D1’s car as the Appellant drove it out of the gates in order to make his getaway.

The Appellant did not deny these acts of killing D1 and D2. What he denied was having the intention to do so. In particular, he relied on two exceptions under s 300 of the Penal Code, namely, the right of private defence and sudden fight: Iskandar HC at [44]. In essence, he maintained that his plan had been to rob, not to kill, and he had inflicted those injuries upon D1 and D2 only because they had attempted to assault him. If the Appellant had succeeded in either of those defences, the charges of murder would have been rebutted and he would, instead, have been convicted of culpable homicide under s 299 of the Penal Code, an offence which does not carry the death penalty.

In relation to D1, the Appellant’s version of events was that, after pretending to communicate on his fake “walkie-talkie”, he had informed D1 that someone had opened the safe deposit box and that they had to return to CISCO with the orange bag. D1 then walked to the kitchen and used the corded telephone there. After doing so, D1 emerged from the kitchen, telling the Appellant that the camera in the box did not contain batteries and accusing the Appellant of cheating him. D1 then assaulted the Appellant with a knife.

This explanation was rejected by both the trial court and this court. In particular, it was held that there was no reasonable explanation as to how D1 could have discovered the Appellant’s ruse or that the dummy camera was a fake. In fact, the “only reasonable inference” from the events summarised above at [11] was that D1 had trusted the Appellant: Iskandar CA at [35] and [37]. Similarly, there was no explanation as to why D1 would turn violent and attack the Appellant with a knife. In this court’s view, it was “simply unbelievable” that D1 would have become so enraged as to attack the Appellant; D1 was also a 67-year-old man with a chronic knee problem, and it would have been a simple matter to have waited for his son or called the police. This court also referred to the evidence of D1’s wife, Mdm Ong Ah Tang, who testified that D1 was not a violent person: Iskandar CA at [43]. With no alternative case put forward by the Appellant, and since he had admitted that he intended to and did cause the injuries to D1, it was held that the Appellant had had the requisite intention to cause death: Iskandar CA at [45]. He had also failed to establish a case in relation to the defences of sudden fight and private defence under s 300 of the Penal Code.

In relation to D2, the Appellant averred that as he was lowering D1’s body on to the floor, D2 appeared in the doorway of the house. D2 then shouted “Pa!” and charged at the Appellant with clenched fists, swinging his right fist, which the Appellant blocked. The Appellant intended to retaliate by punching D2 with his right hand but, failing to realise that the knife was still in his hand, ended up stabbing D2. As D2 continued to punch and pull at the Appellant, the latter ended up stabbing D2 further due to his wild swings. The Appellant’s overall claim was that all he wanted to do was to get D2 away from him so that he could escape.

This claim that the Appellant did not realise the knife was in his hand was found to be an “incredible” one by the trial court. Even if that were so, he should have realised after the first stabbing that he was holding the knife, but he proceeded to stab D2 in the neck several more times. Moreover, the congregation of the stab wounds on the vulnerable parts of D2’s body showed that they were targeted attacks, and with the sheer number, that they were intended to cause death. It was similarly held that the viciousness of the attacks prevented any finding in relation to the defences of private defence and sudden fight: Iskandar HC at [87]. The Appellant was therefore found guilty on both counts of murder. As stated,...